The case of Mustafa Dawood shows just how distorted and cruel the enforcement regime has become against migrant workers, but also how important it is that we change it
Image by Tom Davies
As trade unionists, we often focus on collective challenges. The risks posed to the workforce by the climate emergency, the pandemic and persistent inequality are enormous and are influencing every aspect of our work.
But as a collective, we shouldn’t overlook the role of personal crisis and the interplay with employment. The workplace can be a place of refuge and fulfilment, or a place of exploitation and discrimination. It can support a worker out of crisis – or plunge them into it.
For some of the most vulnerable, those not able to legally work in this country, the crisis is both personal and collective. Mustafa Dawood, a 23 year old man, had fled persecution in Sudan, but was denied asylum in the UK. Like many in this situation, he was forced to work illegally to survive and someone profited from his exploitation.
Immigration officers entered his workplace, a car wash, on 30 June 2018 because of reports that illegal migrants were working there. Mustafa Dawood died of a head injury, having fallen while fleeing the officers. Last week an inquest concluded that the officers’ actions may have contributed to his death.
Businesses reliant on exploitation
These dynamics –a business model reliant on a ready supply of labourers with virtually no rights, and a brutal enforcement regime which targets the worker rather than the boss – are the product of a political system which denies fundamental rights to migrant workers, puts employers on a pedestal, and under-invests in tackling labour exploitation.
And the government can’t claim ignorance as a defence. In 2018, the UK Government’s then Director of Labour Market Enforcement, David Metcalfe, highlighted the high risk of labour exploitation in car washes like the one where Mustafa Dawood worked. When describing labour standards at UK car washes he said:
“Organised crime groups are exploiting workers with threats, debt bondage and withholding travel documents to control workers. Many more in the sector are also not receiving the national minimum wage.”
But the UK Government deliberately criminalises these workers and forces them into exploitation.
TheImmigration Act 2016 inextricably linked the issues of immigration enforcement and labour exploitation. It criminalised undocumented working. A worker whose visa has lapsed and reports abuse to the authorities risks being thrown in prison or deported. Unions warned that this would encourage exploitation as bad employers can force undocumented workers to accept low pay or bad conditions safe in the knowledge that they’ll be too scared to go to the authorities.
An employment rights crisis
In terms of employment rights, our context is crisis. Our enforcement system is not fit for purpose. People cannot confidently report rights violations, and so the vast majority of employers get away with it.
Additionally, employment rights in the UK have become so complex that many workers can’t even recognise that they are being exploited. They don’t know if they have received their annual leave entitlement or correct level of sick pay, and some do not even know if they are legally defined as a worker or employee – or even who their employer is.
To urgently rectify this we need to see a step up in investment, with a long term ambition to increase the number of inspectors and prosecutions of bad bosses.
The link between immigration enforcement and employment rights must also be broken, and a system whereby any worker can report exploitation must be based on the principle that there will be no negative consequences for the worker. And large contractors should be liable for breaches of core employment rights in their supply chains.
And more broadly, the UK Government needs to unpick the hugely unjust conditions imposed by its hostile environment policy towards people seeking asylum – the policies that created the context in which Mustafa Dawood was chased to his death.
That includes lifting the ban on people working to support themselves and their families while they’re stuck in the asylum system. The UK is an international outlier on this and a promised policy review by the Home Office has yet to materialise despite being promised in 2018.
Strong unions
The state’s role is important, but the relationship between employers and the workforce at the workplace level is just as significant. Where the workforce is organised into a union, people are more likely to realise their rights and there are typically fewer issues with labour exploitation and unsafe working practices. Workers acting as a collective can make their workplaces safer and fairer.
This is why the TUC is demanding trade unions be granted new rights to access workplaces so they can inform workers about their rights and enforce them where they’re breached. In Wales, where the government can’t legislate to grant this, we want to see it become a condition of all public funding – no employer should receive state support if they won’t commit to allowing trade unions access to the workforce.
A strange consequence of the coronavirus pandemic has been Welsh Government’s ability to take decisions on aspects of workplace health and safety. While we welcomed the decision to mandate covid risk assessments in all workplaces, in stark contrast to England, we remain in the dark about the extent to which local authorities have enforced this.
We’ve recently launched a Commission on the Future of Devolution and Work, to consider how constitutional arrangements impact Welsh workers and whether powers need to shift in order to achieve better social and economic outcomes.
Recognising the crisis in employment rights will be a key theme of this work, including considering the principles which must underpin a system of employment rights enforcement. The case of Mustafa Dawood shows just how distorted and cruel aspects of the enforcement regime have become, but how important it is that we have a clear ambition for what needs to change.
Shavanah Taj is the general secretary of Wales TUC
